“NowLook-A Here, Blues.
I WantaTalk ToYou”*by Max Haymes

On a November day in 1936 a
youthful Robert Johnson leaned over his guitar and sang:

“Me an’ my baby bought a Vee-8
Ford;
Well, we wound that thing all on the runnin’ board, yeah” (1)

Johnson may have been aware of a
Blind Willie McTell record made some 3 years earlier.

“When you see my mama standin’
in the do’;
Papa wound up an’ mama won’t go.”
Refrain: “You got to warm it up to me, now;
You got to warm it up to me.
Papa’s rod hot, mama got to get ‘im cold.”

“When she’s struttin’ a
Cadillac, a Southern Ford;
She does her struttin’ on the runnin’ board.”
Refrain: “You got to warm it up to me,” etc. (2)

This in turn drew on a recording
made by Big Bill Broonzy and Frank Brasswell, “Papa’s Gettin’ Hot” (Ch 16015)
from 1930. Although Brasswell, the lead singer on this occasion, does not
include the running board verse.

From New Orleans an extract
appeared in the De Bow Review of 1853 which referred back to the times before
the steamboat had “exerted its magical influence on the western (i.e. southern)
waters,”. Written by a Dr. Monette of a time around the beginnings of the 19th
century, he said “the rich cargoes which ascended the Mississippi in keel boats
and barges were propelled by human labor for nearly two thousand miles, slowly
advancing against the strong current of these rivers. The boatmen, with their
bodies naked from the waist, spent the long and tedious days traversing the
‘running board’, and pushing with their whole force against their strong
setting-poles, firmly fixed against the shoulder.” (3) A more detailed account
appeared some 30 years later. “‘Poling’ consisted of pushing the boat up stream
by the aid of long poles. The men successively took their places at the bow and
firmly resting their poles on the bed of the river, walked towards the stern
pushing the boat forward. Whenever a man reached the stern, he pulled up his
pole and ran rapidly back to resume his place in the line. Hence the spaces on
each side of the boat where this constant circuit was going on were called
‘running boards’.” (4)

The running board continued into
the railroad era. This enabled some maintenance and care of the steam engine,
such as topping up with tallow (Footnote 1) from the fireman’s tallow pot. “The
fireman. . . was the man who crawled out of the cab onto the locomotive’s
running board as the train coasted downgrade, and edged precariously along the
side of the hot boiler to fill the cylinder cups with hot tallow.”(6) Running boards on a standard U.S. 4-4-0 engine (see
pic.) “are made of ash (wood) 2 ½ inches thick, supported on wrought-iron
brackets bolted to the boiler. The outside edges of the running-boards are bound
with brass.” (7)

Fig. 1: “The first locomotive on the Minden Tap, a
precursor of the Louisiana & Arkansas Railway which eventually became part of
the Kansas City Southern (of Flying Crow fame). Note the running board
supporting the ‘elegant couple’. The lady appears to be wearing a version of a
Mother Hubbard; April, 1890.”

MotherHubbards

These same running boards
re-appeared on earlier automobiles. The main function presumably was the role of
a platform or ‘stepping stone’ to enable ladies to gather up their long skirts
before descending on to often, very muddy streets. Certainly in the 19-teens and
‘20s in the South, black and white women wore the long, loose-fitting dress
known as a ‘Mother Hubbard’ (from the nursery rhyme character) as part fashion
and part dictate by the religious leaders in both communities. The hem reaching
down to the ground. But by the mid-1920s many young women were rebelling against
this puritanical fashion; including the Blues singer. As shown in the floating
verse incorporated by Clara Smith in her smouldering “Whip It To A Jelly”

“I
wear my skirts up to my knees;
An’ whip that jelly with who I please.
Refrain:
“Oh! Whip it to a jelly—mmmmm; Mmmmm—mmmmm—mmmmnim.” (8)

Fig.2:“The car that featured on Robert Johnson’s
only commercial ‘hit’: “Terraplane Blues”

A couple of titles by male
singers indicated that Clara Smith was bang up to date in fashion. Frank Stokes
recorded his “Nehi Mamma Blues” in 1928 and Blind Joe Reynolds cut “Nehi Blues”
the following year. It was a reference by tough Cincinnati-based pianist ‘Jesse
James’ to ‘loose Mother Hubbards, in the stocking feet’ in 1936 that betrayed
him as a ‘long-time man’ in prison where Decca recording executives found him.
Rising hemlines had been in vogue for over a decade by the time he cut his
hard-hitting version of “Casey Jones” with pounding piano.

“When the news reached town
(that) Casey Jones was dead;
Women went home an’ outed out in red.
Slippin’ an’ slid in’ across the streets;
With loose Mother Hubbards, in the stocking feet.” (9)

Hay

“To sleep on the job”. (10) “a
bed.. .tramps c(ant): 1925.. “hit the hay”, to prepare to sleep” (11). The cool
12-string guitarist Barbecue Bob who was based in Atlanta for his recordings,
include these lines on what is probably his most popular (and finest) blues.

Also see Bob’s “Just Won’t Hay”
on 11/4/29. Although the yellow and black man have the stamina, ‘all night long’
to impress their women; Bob (as a ‘brownskin’) is superior in his style of
loving. in “Just Won’t Hay” the sense is that his feelings/desire just won’t
keep until next morning; it won’t let him sleep.

A name for a speakeasy in Georgia
during Prohibition (1920-1933). Patrons entered a side door down the alley that
was separated from the main street. The inside was separated from the main bar
by a partition - nobody (who shouldn’t) could see in to the blind pig. Also
known as ‘blind tigers’ in Mississippi.

“Blind pig, blind pig, sure
glad you can’t see. (x 2)
Well, if you could, it would be too tight for me.” (17)

Rolling

In the 17th century
“good roads were unknown and wagons were few.” Tobacco was collected, cured and
then packed into hogsheads, a kind of large cask or barrel. To transport it “. .
. a pole and whipple trees were attached to each hogshead by an iron bolt driven
into the centre of one head, thus converting the cask into a huge roller.”
Bolles adds “For many years the places for deposit and inspection of tobacco
werecalled ‘rolling houses’. (18) And
in Jonestown, Md. c. 1820s, “Huge hogsheads of tobacco, stoutly hoped, and with
an axle driven through the middle so as to form a huge roller, and drawn by
horses driven by negroes, were trundled over what are still known (c. 1880s) as
“rolling roads” to town;” (19) In the 1820s Jonestown was changed to Baltimore
after an early Maryland governor, Lord Baltimore.

Fig.3:“Method of transporting tobacco in the South
c.1840, before railroads began to spread. Probable origin of ‘rolling’ to mean
working, and later on, making love.”

This seems the most likely origin
to date for ‘rolling’ to equate with working (before it came to mean making love
and easily adopted by Blues singers as ‘biscuit roller’ or dough roller’ etc.).
It was used in its original meaning by superb slide guitarist Blind Joe Reynolds
from Lake Providence, La. on the Mississippi River. This was across from Tallula,
Miss. in Issaquena County, equi-distant between Greenville and Vicksburg.

Around 7 years later Robert
Johnson also used the term in its work sense. He doesn’t see the sense of doing
shift work out in the cold weather when there are “icicles on the trees” when he
doesn’t have a woman in his life.

This term refers to the early
manual braking system on U.S. trains, both freight and passenger. The job was
done by brakesmen who were sometimes African Americans. It was hard and often
dangerous work. The brake(s) man had to ride the top of the box cars and when
required had to apply his hands to the wheel of each individual vehicle in turn.
Apart from the swaying of the train, weather conditions could be freezing and
blinding rain often obscured vision when he was trying to look out for on-coming
bridges or tunnels. Needless to say there were often fatal accidents.

Fig.4:“Although boasting the legend “Air Brake” on
its side, this box car (1901) of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis
Railway, still sports a stem winder on the rear. The CCC. & St. L. was popularly
known as the ‘Big Four’ and was celebrated by Leroy Carr in 1934 on his “Big Four
Blues” for Vocalion.

Wheels replaced levers for hand
brakes on freight cars some time around 1850. “Some were mounted on the end of
the car, while others were fastened to tall staffs that reached above the
roofline. The wheels themselves were always spoked.” (22) By the late 1860s the
Westinghouse air brake was patented. This was a system that applied brakes to
the whole train at the same time. Although not the inventor of the air brake,
George Westinghouse combined earlier ideas for the first practical example,
between 1868-1869. “His.. .creation was a lucky combination of trial or obvious
elements necessary for a pneumatic train brake.” (23) Due to the teething
troubles, competition from other brake systems, and most of all the railroad
companies’ resistance to the high initial cost of the air brake on thousands of
box cars; the Westinghouse system did not become “standard equipment (on) the
American freight car until 1900.” (24) But some railroads still balked at the
cost of installing air brakes on their freight trains. In the case of the L. &
N. they “were not installed on all the cars until 1914. (25)

But as White observes “Actually,
brakemen of the old sort (i.e. mechanical/manual operators) did not disappear
entirely with the adoption of the air brake.” (26) The old manual staff brakes
were retained on freight cars” as backups in case of an air brake failure. In
addition, some manual braking was routinely done to save wear and tear on the
air brakes.” (27) The staff brake was known as a ‘stem winder’ and Blind Boy
Fuller soon adapted the persona (?) of this device as a boast of his sexual
prowess.

“My gal say ‘You can treat me
mean, and you can treat me low;
But every time I see you, know I wanna wind some more’.”
Refrain:
“Says, I’m a good stem winder; Yeah, I’m a good stem winder.
Says, I’m a good stem winder, please bring your work to me.” (28)

The stem winder consisted of a
vertical rod and a wheel at the top of the rod for the
leverage to wrap the brake chain around the vertical rod to stop or secure the
car. Apaul was provided to hold the brake applied.”
(29) A paul is” A short bar preventing acapstan, etc.
from rolling back”. (30)

“The Industrial
Resources, etc. of the Southern & Western States. Vol.111. On microfilm from
British Lending Library. Originally published at the Office of De Bow’s
Review, Merchant’s Exchange, New Orleans, 1853. p.457.

Included in a forthcoming book
“Railroadin’ Some”* is a more lengthy and fully detailed discussion of meanings
in pre-war blues connected to the railroads; such as ‘riding the rods’/’blinds’,
‘highball’/‘balling the jack’, ‘smokestack lightning’, ‘yellow dog’, ‘hotshot’,
et al. Also includes chapters tracing blues piano/boogie woogie to its starting
place and a Blues ‘journey’ on the M. & O. RR. from Mobile, Ala. to St. Louis,
Mo. Featuring around 100 Blues transcriptions as well as many illustrations of
the Blues and railroads.

* “Railroadin’ Some”(railroads in
the early Blues) by Max Haymes. Publication with Cambridge University Press
pending. 2003.